@ireneista @vkc hmm, I keep thinking about replacing my printer that stopped working, so I don’t have to go to the shop and spend $5 every time I need to print something, but maybe I should stick with the shop printer

(As infrequently as I need to print things I’m probably saving money anyway)

@ShadSterling @vkc the shop for sure has a record of your legal identity as well, and since nobody has figured out what data is inside the steganography, it could plausibly include a timestamp. so, it's a valid option but don't make any strong assumptions about how safe you are or aren't.

@lebout2canap I only knew about it because it came up in the context of a court case where someone had been printing and mailing threatening letters to themself.

@vkc

@vkc Printing on some laser safe acetate can help to make the tracking dots fairly visible. Or at least, when I've been making a 3d printed badges, it's been pretty easy to see the blocks of dots covering the page.

@vkc I was there the day Seth Schoen figured this out, at the old EFF offices on Shotwell Street in the Mission.

@pluralistic @vkc that's really cool!

@vkc
I wonder if (some) 3d printers do the same.

By the way there are way there are ways to try identify single camera sensors:

Photo response non-uniformity - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

@ShadSterling@mastodon.social @ireneista@adhd.irenes.space @vkc@linuxmom.net generally the data included in every print is a timestamp and serial number.

if you want a modern-ish inkjet printer that's hard to trace, i'd buy one from a thrift store with cash, and never connect it to a network. the serial will then be much harder to trace all the way to you. just make sure the computer it's being plugged into is airgapped, and ideally has the time set wrong too.

@eri @vkc @ShadSterling wait, did somebody figure out the format??? we assumed it was still indistinguishable from random noise

@vkc so what you're telling me is I should print off my butt pics at the post office?

@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space @vkc@linuxmom.net @ShadSterling@mastodon.social afaik yes, but i can't verify they work because i can't find any dots on a print made with the one inkjet printer i own. a surprising resurgence in the research happened after someone realized they could use this to catch people selling fake pokemon cards.

@eri @vkc @ShadSterling huhhhhh. we should get ourselves up-to-date on it, then. thanks for the heads up!

@vkc Trying to find sources on what I remember from the communist period in Poland – all private typewriters had to be registered with the state security service, leaving a sample of the typewriter's output, to enable identification in cases of "misuse".

@evan @pluralistic @vkc Why reverse engineering and hacking firmware should be legal, and even constitutionally protected. It's a crazy tech panopticon we live in, and legislation is blind as a bat to it.

@lgsp @vkc

Does anybody have informations about possible tracking of each banknote delivered by an ATM ?

@Gergovie @vkc

I never went deep, but banknotes have serial numbers, I think. Still much less tracking than any credit/debit card.

@lgsp @vkc

Sure. You can't track each transaction, but banks could record who take the note, and who bring it back to a bank.

And then spot laundering agents.

@vkc
can these dots be read out when printed on yellow paper?

@socketwench @vkc Hmmm if it talks HP GL or ps that should be no problem from the Linux driver perspective, and ps can be interpreted pretty directly (mostly...).
I will dig out my Lego Control Centre. I also need to get some 9v Lego cables to cut apart.... A spare ESP or Arduino should be kicking around. H-bridges I will have to buy... (the plotter will suck, Lego is not built for precision movement).

Now I "just" need to find the time for it.

@vkc there are scripts on github to render tracking dots useless